Santiago Rusiñol

Santiago Rusiñol

Santiago Rusiñol

Santiago Rusiñol i Prats; (Barcelona, 25 of February 1861-Aranjuez, 13 of June 1931) was a painter, writer and playwright catalan that came from the breast of a family wealthy of industrial of the textile. Santiago Rusiñol studied at the center of watercolorists in Barcelona which was one of the founders and was a disciple of Tomás Moragas.

At the beginning of his career included the human figure but then influenced by the Impressionists, the theme of his work focused on landscapes, portraits and symbolic compositions of modernist inspiration.

Orphaned very young, he was raised by his grandfather after, Rusiñol reflected in (Sr L´Auca, Esteve). The grandfather tried to instill values of respect, discipline, attitude, bien-pensante and bourgeois values, but Santiago Rusiñol was always a Bohemian. A Bohemian who could not afford being without having to go through the misery of the Bohemian of the time.

He was all his life in a constant struggle with the “Phoenicians” that only things valued by their price, as it makes us notice “The little Prince” by Antoine de St Exupéry. Rusiñol became a well known character in Barcelona by its customs, dress, form styling, tastes and defiant attitude. In Barcelona he frequented the gatherings of coffee “Els Quatre Gats”.

He also wrote for La Vanguardia y L´Esquella de la Torratxa

Thanks to his social position he could make several trips. He lived a few years in Paris, Montmartre, where settled with other Catalan artists (Ramon Casas and Zuloaga) and had teachers like Puvis de Chavannes and Carrière. The only works that wrote in Spanish were “Impressions of art” and a series of articles titled “from my mill”. Zuloaga aroused her interest in el Greco.

Mention aside deserves Cau Ferrat. In 1892 Rusiñol bought a House of fishermen and the following year the adjacent (S XIV). On the resulting plot of these two buildings he had built to Francesc Rogent his Studio-workshop. Named it Cau Ferrat by; CAU which means den so lovers of poetry and Ferrat could take refuge for its collection of forged irons. Here hung the paintings acquired in France of the Greco.

Its official opening on July 25, 1894 (St. James) was the performance of the municipal band of Sitges.